The Sport That Eats Its Young

Golf Usually Isn't Kind to Prodigies. Can Tianlang Guan Be Like Tiger?

ENLARGE

Fourteen-year-old Tianlang Guan of China hitting a shot during the final round of ths year's Masters.
Getty Images

By

John Paul Newport

April 19, 2013 6:20 p.m. ET

Tianlang Guan,
the 14-year-old sensation at last week's Masters, tees it up again Thursday at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans. If he repeats his trick at Augusta of making the cut—he's the youngest ever to do so in a PGA Tour event—we may be seeing a lot more of him here. Whether he is doing the right thing for his future as a golfer is a different question.

So far, so good. "I hope to play well and enjoy the tournament and have fun," Guan said in a conference call Thursday. The English-speaking eighth-grader has been in the U.S. for almost a month now, with his parents, and said he was only "just a little" homesick. He was vague about his plans following the Zurich but is expected to try to qualify for June's U.S. Open.

"He's got a great future ahead of him. All departments of his game are very sharp,"
Ben Crenshaw
told me Friday. Crenshaw played with Guan for the first two rounds at the Masters and was amazed above all by his maturity. "I could not believe his presence and his confidence in what he was doing with his game. He didn't let anything from the outside affect him."

Guan, the youngest Masters competitor ever, hit his drives on average 10 yards shorter than the next shortest competitor who made the cut, and 42 yards shorter than the leader,
Robert Garrigus.
"But he never overswung," Crenshaw marveled. "He was true to his swing, his rhythm, his balance. My gosh, all the rest of us at 14 were trying to swing off our feet. He displayed a wisdom well beyond his years."

Guan compensated with an uncanny short game. He tied for first (with
Rickie Fowler
) in putting and was one of only two players (
Lee Westwood
was the other) with no three-putts for the week. "He played about four of the most delicate pitches you have ever seen," Crenshaw said earlier.

So when Guan gets taller, stronger and longer, he's a surefire Hall of Famer, right? Don't count on it. In fact, despite all of the above, the odds are against him.

The road from success at 14 years old to adult stardom is long and disjointed. "Golf is so different from other sports because careers are so long," said
Pia Nilsson,
who has coached
Annika Sorenstam,
Suzann Pettersen
and
Ai Miyazato,
among others. "Very often the boys and girls who are good at an early age are not the ones who are good later on."

In sports like gymnastics, diving and ice skating, motivated youngsters with an extensive coaching and support system peak in their teens. Then they're done. But before golf prodigies reach their prime, at the earliest in their 20s and more often in their 30s, a lot of life intervenes.

"Of course, you can learn to get very good at a young age. We see that more and more, especially in Asia, where very young boys and girls are practicing harder and harder," Nilsson said. "But being the best golfer you can possibly be requires long-term thinking and an understanding that we are human beings and we have to grow up."

Teenagers go through growth spurts, both physically and emotionally, she said. Dealing with setbacks and vulnerabilities in the public eye eats away at confidence and can undermine careers.
Michelle Wie,
the former phenom who made the cut at a U.S. Women's Open at 13, turned pro at 15 and signed eight-figure endorsement deals, is a prime example. Wie, now 23 and back to golf full-time, may yet achieve adult stardom, but the sledding has been tough.

Others have struggled similarly. In 2001, Ty Tryon earned his PGA Tour card at 17, the youngest ever, but made few cuts over the next two seasons and is now languishing in the minor leagues. Se Ri Pak of South Korea turned pro at 19, in 1996, and took the LPGA Tour by storm, winning 22 times. She stalled in her late 20s, explaining that she had lost her joy in golf and balance in her life. Since 2004, she has won only four times.

"What Guan did at the Masters, in my view, was very, very dangerous," said
Henry Brunton,
the former national golf coach of Canada and an expert on golf development. He cited research showing that 85% of age-group champions as kids fail to stay near the top by the time they reach their 20s.

"What if he had shot 90, which he easily could have, except that he putted and chipped like a demon?" Brunton said. "What kind of shame would he have felt for himself and for his country? The carnage we see to talented kids at this age who reach the spotlight is dismaying."

The expectations for Guan may already be too high. He said Thursday he has played in more than 200 tournaments and won 80 or 90 of them. The biggest by far was the Asia-Pacific Amateur last November, which earned him his spot in the Masters. But most of the others were age-group competitions, some quite small. In his four American Junior Golf Association events, last year and in 2011, he finished tied for second, 11th and 24th and once in solo seventh. His world amateur golf ranking, even after the Masters, is No. 100.

Guan fared as well as he did last week partly through customized preparation. After he qualified, the owner of his home course in Guangzhou maintained a green, at Augusta National speeds, exclusively for Guan's use. Before the Masters, he spent three weeks in Augusta getting to know the tricky putting surfaces.

If Guan follows
Tiger Woods
's
blueprint for success, he will stay close to home for the next few years, attend school and do the normal things teenagers do, while continuing to win tournaments and dominate at age-appropriate levels. Woods, between the ages of 9 and 14, won six straight Optimist International Junior World Championships and followed those with three straight U.S. Junior Amateur wins, then three U.S. Amateurs. He turned pro at 20 and won the Masters at age 21.

Guan, his parents and his Chinese backers will choose their own path. International golf is a new frontier for China, but Guan and a few others—including
Andy Zhang,
who qualified at 14 for last year's U.S. Open—are the leading edge. Anyone who underestimates them does so at their peril.

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